Image information processing method, image information processing apparatus, image processing apparatus, and recording medium

1. An image information processing apparatus that determines, based on image information, a region suitable for inspecting image forming performance of an image forming apparatus in an entire region of an image represented by the image information, the image information processing apparatus comprising: a segment region extraction unit that extracts a segment region having a predetermined size from the entire region of the image; a color reproducibility prediction unit that predicts a result of color reproducibility of the entire image by using an algorithm in a case where the image forming performance of the image forming apparatus is adjusted based on a color measurement result of the extracted segment region; an object region determination unit that determines, as an object region, the segment region showing a best one of the plural results obtained by repeatedly performing extraction processing by the segment region extraction unit and prediction processing by the color reproducibility prediction unit; an evenness degree calculation unit that calculates an evenness degree of color density in the segment region extracted by the segment region extraction unit; and a prediction object selection unit that selects only the segment region showing an excellent calculation result of the evenness degree and outputs the image information on the segment region to the color reproducibility prediction unit as a prediction object of the result.

2. The image information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the evenness degree calculation unit is configured so as to calculate the evenness degree based on at least any one of a dispersion degree of a pixel value, a difference between a maximum value and a minimum value of the pixel value, and a frequency characteristic of the pixel value as color information of a pixel in the segment region.

3. The image information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the segment region extraction unit is configured so as to extract a new segment region based on a prediction result by the color reproducibility prediction unit.

4. The image information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein, in a case where the image forming performance of the image forming apparatus is adjusted in accordance with a color of the segment region extracted by the segment region extraction unit, the algorithm individually predicts the color reproducibility for each of all the other segment regions and calculates a best value or an average value of prediction results as the result of the color reproducibility of the entire image.

5. The image information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein, in a case where the image forming performance of the image forming apparatus is adjusted in accordance with a position in the entire image of the segment region extracted by the segment region extraction unit, the algorithm individually predicts the color reproducibility with respect to positions of all the other segment regions and calculates a best value or an average value of prediction results as the result of the color reproducibility of the entire image.

6. A non-transitory recording medium having recorded therein a program so as to be readable by a machine, the program causing a computer to function as the image information processing apparatus according to claim 1 .